Covenant

83

Lopez tossed her case files onto her desk like a spoiled child discarding an old toy and picked up her jacket and car keys. She couldn’t bring herself to hate Captain Powell but she sure as hell hated herself. If she hadn’t reported Tyrell, then none of this would have happened. By now he’d probably be having his ass whipped by Commissioner Devereux, and Lopez herself was headed home with her own tail between her legs.

From where the files had fallen, a picture of Damon Sheviz stared out at her in black and white, his eyes a mischievous cross between those of the enlightened and the fanatic. There was something about the image that made her feel uneasy, something primal.

Beside her Lucas Tyrell’s phone rang suddenly, making her jump. She reached across and picked the receiver up.

“Yeah?”

“Hello,” came a voice that Lopez guessed was probably from the Windy City. “Is Detective Tyrell there?”

“He’s”—Lopez picked her words with care—“off duty right now. Let me take your name and number and I’ll get hold of Tyrell.”

“Of course,” the voice said, “my name’s Douglas Jarvis, Defense Intelligence Agency.”

“And what’s it regarding?”

“It’s regarding a report filed with the ICMP. I’ve been trying to reach Detective Tyrell but he’s been away from his desk.”

Lopez looked at the file in her hands and felt an almost supernatural tingle rippling down her spine.

“I posted information to the ICMP about a man found dead in the capital two days ago, a scientist by the name of—”

“Joseph Coogan?” asked the voice.

“How did you know that name?” Lopez asked in surprise.

“What’s your connection to this?”

“Lucas Tyrell is my partner. We’ve been working on this case for the past forty-eight hours or so.”

There was a pause on the line. “What sort of case?”

“Homicide that looked like an overdose but the pathology didn’t figure.”

“What was the discrepancy?”

“Too complicated to go into without the paperwork, but Coogan appeared to have died after some kind of unexplained medical procedure performed by a Damon Sheviz.”

“Was that analysis obtained during autopsy, something to do with traces of excess hydrogen sulphide in the blood?”

Lopez stood bolt upright.

“It was, along with signs of hypothermia and altered blood groups.”

The voice on the other end of the line became equally agitated.

“I think that we need to talk. I’ve been in touch with our embassy in Israel. It would appear that wherever Mr. Sheviz goes he leaves a trail of bodies behind him. We’ve also got some evidence of a company owned by the American Evangelical Alliance called MACE, purchasing and importing medical equipment into Israel that doesn’t correspond with their stated research programs, things like heart-bypass machines.”

Nicola Lopez could barely suppress the smile that broke out on her face as she grabbed a pen.

She quickly wrote down Jarvis’s details and hung up. Before she had even a chance to think about what had just happened, Larry Pitt, one of the junior officers in her division charged with administration duties, walked up to her desk and tossed a file in front of her.

“History on Casey Jeffs that you asked for,” he said casually. “Didn’t have enough time to grab all the files for your PDA earlier. Interesting guy.”

Lopez picked the file up as Pitt strolled away, opening it to find two pages of information, the first filled with what she already knew. As she read the second, however, her jaw fell slack and a sudden premonition of doom swamped her like a heavy blanket.

Lopez reached into her pocket for her cell phone, quick-dialing Kaczynski’s number, but the engaged tone cut her off. She rang off and tried Tyrell instead. Another recorded message droned in her ear.

Lopez leaped out of her chair and ran through the office until she caught up with Pitt.

“Larry, you seen Kaczynski?”

“He left about an hour ago,” Pitt said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder.

“Shit.”

Lopez knew that she had to get to Tyrell before he did something he would regret.

“Get on a terminal. I need Casey Jeff’s home address!”